tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-358865732024-03-18T20:51:06.440-07:00The DesignInterferenceExploring the bad reasoning of creationism, intelligent design (ID) and its advocates from a scientific perspective.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-9947888981677764902007-07-26T17:21:00.000-07:002007-07-26T17:48:39.127-07:00The Scoville scale of dangerous questionsTaped to the wall just next to where I am writing this is a cut-out from an old issue of "New Scientist" that describes the Scoville scale. This scale describes the hotness (spicyness) of food on a linear scale. The hotness is determined by diluting a known amount of a food item until you no longer can taste the burning sensation. The rating a food item gets on the scale is represented directly by the amount of dilution necessary. While a typical Jalapeno pepper measures a paltry 2,500-8,000 on this scale, the Guiness Book of record desribes a pepper that measure 580,000(!) and there is even one that measure 855,000!!!. Pretty hot. That's interesting and all, but what has this got to do with ID? Well, William Dembski proposes that we should ask some dangerous questions for materialism and <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/just-for-fun/a-scoville-scale-for-dangerous-questions/#comments">grade them on the Scoville scale</a>. Asks he:<br /><br /><blockquote>What would happen if the general public not only disbelieved materialism (as it is, they disbelieve it now) but also decided to cease funding it out of their tax dollars?</blockquote>I'll let the ID crowd worry about that question and ask a similar one on my own:<br /><blockquote>What would happen if the general public not only embraced non-materialism (even more than now) but also decided to cease funding materialistic science, instead channeling all those tax dollars into non-materialistic "science"?<br /></blockquote><br />- What would happen if prayer studies superceded drug trials?<br /><br />- What would happen if divining became a legitimate scientific tool?<br /><br />- What would happen if "God-did-it" became a valid scientific explanation?<br /><br />I'd say that the above would rate fairly highly on the scale, some possibly coming close to the equivalent of pure capsaicin.<br /><br />Small note: I just noticed that this is my 100th post on this blog. Hurrah for me.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-17451021436298142072007-07-25T19:27:00.000-07:002007-07-25T19:28:36.286-07:00I am so smart. S-M-R-T!<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/the-stupidity-test/" target="_blank" title="The Stupidity Test"><img src="http://www.thegamehomepage.com/stupidity/0.gif" /></a><br /><br /></center><br /><br />With a bit of practice, that is.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-73760368328486465662007-07-24T16:03:00.000-07:002007-07-24T18:32:28.754-07:00Oh, the ironyCasey Luskin of the Discovery Institute wonders:<br /><b></b><blockquote><b>Question:</b> What do you do when a theory logically predicts both (a) and not (a)?<br /><b>Answer:</b> Apparently you heavily promote it.<br /></blockquote>Luskin is referring to a couple of evolutionary papers that appear to do just that. It would seem that a theory that can predict both one thing and it's absolute opposite would be absolutely useless as far as science goes. And he would be right - to an extent. There are some problems with Luskins argument, however. (1) Predicting both (a) and not (a) is NOT necessarily bad. To see why, consider this: if (x) then (a); if (y) then not (a). Both (a) and not (a) are predicted <span style="font-style: italic;">but the conclusion depends on the premises of the argument</span>. So, predicting two opposite outcomes is not necessarily a bad thing at all. (2) Evolutionary theory on it's own doesn't make any predictions. It is the auxilliary propositions added to them that do. So in a scenario where hyposesis (x) predicts (a) and hypothesis (y) predicts not (a) and (a) is the outcome, hypothesis (x) makes the successful prediction. Fine, you might say, but if evolution can make contradictory hypothesis it would still be able to predict anything. What is important to note, however, is that there are restrictions as to which auxilliary propositions can be used - they must be independently supported. For a starter, we're not allowed to assume that the theory we are testing is true, for then we would be indulging in circular reasoning. Second, we can't use the observations that we based our auxilliary proposition on to test our theory, for if we did, we could simply have our proposition predict whatever is observed. Lets use this knowledge to explain why Luskin is wrong when he claims that evolution predicts both (a) and not (a). Writes Luskin:<br /><blockquote>The <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18405734/">first article</a> about the evolution of Waterfowl genitalia contends, “Scientists had speculated that male waterfowl evolved longer phalluses to give them a competitive edge over those not as well-endowed when it came to successfully fertilizing females.” That makes sense, I suppose. But the article makes one admission that strikingly contradicts that little just-so hypothesis: “Most birds lack phalluses, organs like human penises. Waterfowl are among the just 3 percent of all living bird species that retain the grooved phallus…” If long phalluses are so advantageous for reproduction, why did so many birds supposedly lose them? Darwinists will look back retroactively and tell us that, in the environmental conditions for most bird species, long phalluses weren’t advantageous. The problem in so doing is that they now have a theory which can explain both (a) long phalluses, and also not (a).</blockquote>The auxilliary proposition here (male waterfowl evolved longer phalluses to give them a competitive edge) can be tested by performing a "simple" experiment. One can take two male populations of fowl; one has short phalluses, one has long ones. Allowing for mating with female fowl, one would observe which population was the most reproductively successful. If the population with the long phalluses was more successful then the proposition is strengthened since it predictied that this would happen. Notice that the proposition does not require you to assume that evolution is true what-so-ever. Neither are you recycling old "known" observations.<br /><br />Let us now have a look at one of Luskin's favorite ID predictions, namely that <a href="http://thedesigninterference.blogspot.com/2007/05/luskin-is-so-predictable.html">ID predicts that the should be no junk DNA</a>. Luskin has made this claim so many times that my eardrums (or should that be retinas?) are starting are going numb. Let's examine how ID would fare under the above conditions. First of all, can we avoid circular reasoning for reaching this conclusion? As it turns out, no, we can't. ID makes no assumptions what-so-ever about the supposed designer. (The following is taken virtually verbatim from <a href="http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/%7Ehawks/NoIDTcanNotPredict.htm">an article I wrote previously</a>) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In fact, ID does not and CAN NOT tell us anything about the designer; It cannot tell us anything about the designer’s intentions or purposes any more than it can tell us anything about whether the designer prefers brown over blue. The "junk-DNA claim" seems to stem from the observation (by IDists) that when human designers design things, they don’t tend to put junk into their designs. We should then reasonably expect that the “intelligent designer” would not have put junk into the design of our DNA. So, the claim comes down to is that since we can predict, based on human behaviour that there should be little junk DNA, it also follows that ID would predict the very same thing. An observant reader might notice something iffy here – namely that ID does not say anything about the designer. More precisely, ID says nothing about the designer thinking and acting like a human and even if it did, it says nothing about the designer’s desires about junk DNA. In order for ID to predict something regarding the existence of junk in DNA or anything for that matter, it will have to add some form of assumption about the designer’s intents or purposes. That assumption would include something about the designer's desires to put junk into DNA. I.e. the conclusion would also be found in the assumptions - pure circularity. So, ID is just as happy to predict the non-existence of junk in DNA as it is happy to predict it's ample existence.<br /><br />Let's now, as opposed to Luskin's circular argument, go full circle and return the reason for this post, namely Luskin's initial assertion:<br /></span><b></b><blockquote><b>Question:</b> What do you do when a theory logically predicts both (a) and not (a)?<br /><b>Answer:</b> Apparently you heavily promote it.<br /></blockquote>Which theory does that sound like?<br /><br />Edited to add: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2007/07/luskin_being_silly.php">EVOLUTIONBLOG</a> has also commented on Luskin's post.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-52481908246268734622007-07-23T23:57:00.000-07:002007-07-24T01:16:33.688-07:00A de novo-'Out of Nowhere'-GeneAt uncommondescent, <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/a-de-novo-out-of-nowhere-gene/">PaV find it interesting</a> how "Darwinists" explain things. He is referring to a gene - <span style="font-style: italic;">hydra</span> - found in various species of the fruit fly <span style="font-style: italic;">Drosophila</span> that appears to not to be related to other genes in any known genome. What is interesting, according to PaV, is that since gradual accumlation of mutations in a duplicated gene is an unlikely source for this gene, the scientists that described it actually propose an alternative explanation for how this gene might have ended up in the flies genomes. The explanation proposed is that a virus which carried a transposon that inserted itself into an ancestral fly genome. PaV says:<br /><blockquote>While that’s, hypothetically possible, right now there’s no way of proving that since, per the author,<i> “You cannot find any related genes in the fly genome or any species’ genome, and that is what is unique.”</i> (my emphasis) Is this simply grasping at straws? Or, are they onto something? I guess time will tell.</blockquote>Being that I have done some research into bacterial horizontal gene transfer, especially regarding integrons and gene cassettes, I don't find the researchers proposed explanation particularly far-fetched. To explain why, I must first give a quick explanation of what integrons/gene cassettes are. They all consist of a gene that codes for a protein known as an integrase. Near this gene is an attachment site where the integrase can either insert of excise something known as gene cassettes. Gene cassettes, in turn, consist of a recombination site (recognised by the integrase) and most often an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_reading_frame">ORF</a> that is typically some hundreds of bases long. ORFs found in gene cassettes often carry adaptive traits such as antibiotic resistance but more to the point it is fairly common for them to not have any known homologues - just as in the case of <span style="font-style: italic;">hydra</span>. So when the researchers propose that <span style="font-style: italic;">hydra</span> was transferred from another organism, I don't think thay are grasping for straws at all. I'm more surprised that such genes are not found more often. Granted, integrons/gene cassettes are only known to exist in prokaryotes, but it not exactly unheard of that foreign DNA can insert itself into eukaryotes either (think HIV and herpes virus).<br /><br />What <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">I</span> find interesting is that PaV finds it interesting how "Darwinists"explain things. Proposing a plausible explanation is simply good science and shouldn't be sneered at.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-70244252209352990512007-07-13T17:28:00.000-07:002007-07-13T17:58:53.140-07:00Casey Luskin seems to have a bit of a <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/07/is_there_evidence_of_function.html#more">problem performing probability calculations</a>. His claim is that, for a mouse with a mutation rate of 2*10^-9 per base pair per generation, it would take 125 million years for every single base pair to become subsituted (in the absense of selection).<br /><blockquote><p>"Carroll claims that the mutation rate for mice is 2 x 10^-9 per base pair per generation, and other sources indicate that mouse generation time is 3 months. This means that a non-functional mouse 'pseudogene' should be completely rewritten in about 125 million years. According to Neo-Darwinists, humans and mice supposedly shared a common ancestor between 75 and 125 million years ago, which means that any such shared 'pseudogenes' could have been 60%-100% rewritten by neutral mutations. Could we still recognize a 'pseudogene' [were it] 60% rewritten? 75%? 100%?"<br />The calculation is fairly simple to perform, and I'll break it in 3 steps:<br />(1): Mutation rate = 2 * 10-9 mutated-base-pair / generation = 0.000000002 mutated-base-pair / generation.<br />(2): 0.000000002 mutated-base-pair / generation * 4 generations / year = 0.000000008 mutated-base-pair / year.<br />(3): Take the inverse to make the units "years per mutated-base-pair" (i.e., how long will it take to guarantee that a given base pair is mutated or "rewritten"), and you get 125,000,000 years per any given mutated-base-pair.<br /></p><p>One can also frame the calculation slightly differently by recognizing that there are 4 generations per year for mice:<br />0.000000002 mutated-base-pair / generation * 125,000,000 year * 4 generation / year = 1 mutated-base-pair.<br /></p></blockquote><br />So, 0.000000002 * 125,000,000 *4 = 1 is his probability argument, which is, of course, extremely wrong. Casey Luskin, you can't simply add probabilites together. If you could, then you would be 200% certain that all bases would be substituted after 250 million years. This is obviously nonsensical. Using this "logic", Luskin should also argue that after six rolls with a dice, you are 100% certain to get a "1". A more correct calculation would be to take 1 minus the inverse of the probability of a substitution raised to the power of the number of possibilities for substitutions:<br /><br />1-(0.999999998^(4*125,000,000))=0.63. I.e. after 125,000,000 years, there is a 63% chance that any given base pair has mutated once. (There is also a roughly 40% chance that any base pair has mutated twice and a 25% chance that it has mutated three times. Several mutations at the same site could potentially restore the original base pair.)<br /><br />"Evolutionists" sometimes accuse creationists of not understanding probability calculations, something that sometimes is warranted and sometimes is not. In Luskin's case it certainly is.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-49547559553698963882007-07-09T20:49:00.000-07:002007-07-09T20:56:42.001-07:00This blog is rated:<a href="http://mingle2.com/blog-rating"><img style="border: none;" src="http://mingle2.com/img/bb/blog_rating/r.jpg" alt="Free Online Dating" /></a><br /><br />Well, not really. It's really rated:<br /><br /><a href="http://mingle2.com/blog-rating"><img style="border: none;" src="http://mingle2.com/img/bb/blog_rating/g.jpg" alt="Free Online Dating" /></a><br /><br />The only offensive words that showed up on this blog, according to mingle, was 'dead' - three times. I wonder what would happen if I started writing more about sex, sex, sex and drugs, drugs, drugs. See, I couldn't even muster entering any ruder words than those. Rceommended for "general audiences" it is.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-70314436219418121362007-07-08T15:43:00.000-07:002007-07-08T16:24:18.633-07:00Seems like the <a href="http://dododreams.blogspot.com/2007/07/chain-mail.html">"tagging"</a> that has been doing the rounds at a number of blogs has reached my corner of the blogosphere. In order for me not to be afflicted with eternal misfortune, having to sacrifice my first-born and having to eat only haggis for the rest of my life, these rules must be obeyed:<br /><br /><blockquote>1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.<br />2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.<br />3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.<br />4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.<br />5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.<br /></blockquote><br />Rather than give a boring account of some boring aspects of my life, .... nah, I'll give a boring account of some boring aspect of my life - a short account of why this blog exists. It all started many years ago in this very galaxy when:<br /><br />1. I started reading popular science magazines in my early teens.<br /><br />2. I used to be a well-paid computer programmer.<br /><br />3. While reading "New Scientist" some eight years ago, I came across a side bar saying something along the lines of "Creationism is alive and kicking in the US". Growing up in a largely secular society, I thought such religious devotion was virtually non-existent. Boy, was I wrong.<br /><br />4. I got interested in the evolution vs ID/creationism debate and my interest in science switched from "general" to more biology-focused.<br /><br />5. I left my lucrative job to pursue a career in science.<br /><br />6. I started debating creationists in various forms in different internet fora such as <a href="http://www.skepticfriends.org/">Skeptic Friends</a> and later Uncommon Descent.<br /><br />7. I got banned from posting at Uncommon Descent.<br /><br />8. I set up this blog so that I can moan all I want, without the risk of censorship, about some of the nonsense the ID/creationist crowd put forth.<br /><br />The unfortunates I will expose to this chain-mail curse are as follows:<br /><br /><a href="http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/">Fresh Brainz</a><br /><br /><a href="http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/dude">Aude Sapere</a><br /><br /><a href="http://dumheterigenesis.blogsome.com/">Vetenskap & F<span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">ö</span>rnuft</a><br /><br /><a href="http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/">Rationally Speaking</a><br /><br /><a href="http://scienceavenger.blogspot.com/">Science Avenger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.someotherguy86.blogspot.com/">A History of Histrionics</a><br /><br /><a href="http://decorabilia.blogspot.com/">decorabilia</a><br /><br />I think that I will probably be the first to tag myself, leading to an infinite tag-loop (yeah, I know I have already been tagged, but that is not against the rules):<br /><br /><a href="http://thedesigninterference.blogspot.com/">The DesignInterference</a>Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-45912005948602592432007-07-03T04:17:00.000-07:002007-07-03T04:48:55.177-07:00First denialism about the HIV/AIDS link, now...... we are told by a certain BobMort that <a href="http://www.overwhelmingevidence.com/oe/node/304">antibiotic resistant bacteria are no threat to humanity</a>, since<br /><blockquote>What they failed to notice was that each time a bacteria becomes immune to an antibiotic, it usually becomes dramatically weakened and less able to survive in other respects.<br />...<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Evolutionist doctors believe that antibiotic resistance is a bad thing because in their world-view, the thing they fear the most is a strain of bacteria which is reistant to multiple forms of antibiotic; however what they have failed to comprehend is that such a bacterial strain would have been so weakened by evolution as to become hardly a danger to mankind.<br />...<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Evolution is nothing to be afraid of, and can only practically weaken a strain of bacteria to the point where it is no longer a threat.<br /></blockquote>I've <a href="http://thedesigninterference.blogspot.com/2007/06/downhill-from-here.html">previously discussed</a> that the acquisition of antibiotic resistance does not necessarily lead to decreased fitness in an environment where antibiotics are absent, so BobMort's point is dud from the word go. There is, on top of this, a notable irony in BobMost's writings as well. He claims:<br /><blockquote>In a nutshell, these podcasts explain that doctors have mis-understood the concept of antibiotic resistance, mainly because they have applied a materialistic, evolutionary world-view to this problem.<br /></blockquote>The irony is that, as detailed in his previous quotes above, he appeals to materialistic, evolutionary processes to argue that antibiotic resistance is NOT a problem. The fact that the topic of his post was about how ID was to lead to practical medical advances makes it all even more ironic.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-75882896732674260632007-07-02T17:47:00.001-07:002007-07-02T21:27:50.918-07:00ID awards coming your wayThe ID movement has for a long time been criticized for not conducting any research, instead spending all it's hard-earned cash on merely promoting it's philosophical position. Today, things are about to change. <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/idurc-announces-2007-casey-luskin-graduate-award/">As of this year</a>,<br /><blockquote>The Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) is proud to present the <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/idurc-announces-2007-casey-luskin-graduate-award/">2007 Casey Luskin Graduate Award</a>, presented annually to a deserving college graduate for excellence in student advocacy of intelligent design.<br /></blockquote>Oh, wait. The award is not awarded because of any research performed - it is awarded for promoting ID. Nothing new under the Sun then.<br /><br />Interestingly, the recipient of the award is to be kept anonymous. The stated reason for this is:<br /><blockquote>The recipient of the 2007 Casey Luskin Graduate Award will remain anonymous for the protection of the recipient. The many students, professors, and scientists who have been denied degrees or tenure, and removed from positions and jobs for no other reason than acceptance of—or even sympathy to—intelligent design theory is very telling of the importance of keeping these bright young minds out of the crosshairs of those opposed to open-minded investigation and critical thought.</blockquote>Given that the award is given out to be people because they are already known to promote ID, I really don't understand what the secrecy is about. Even if the recipient posts anonymously on a blog, why not name the blog? Not that it really matters, I'm just wondering...Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-21961501700149643772007-07-02T14:56:00.000-07:002007-07-02T15:35:00.586-07:00Darwinism hurts - but viruses don'tIDists love to do a bit of Darwinism bashing when given, it seems like, ANY opportunity. Latest in line is PaV at uncommondescent who claims that <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/when-darwinism-hurts/">Darwinism has been a hinder in the fight against cancer</a>. He makes this claim based on an article written by Dr. Peter Duesberg that argues that aneuploidy rather than point mutations actually cause cancers. The illogic of Pav's claim was properly exposed in the comment section of PaV's post by Hermagoras and GeoMor so there is no need for me to say anything further on that point. Also, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/04/peter_duesberg_chromosomal_chaos_and_can.php">Orac at Respectful Insolence</a> discusses the plausibility of Duesberg's claims.<br /><br />The comments section takes a rather interesting turn when IDists DaveScot, PaV and scordova turn out to be "HIV causes AIDS denialists". This was something I only expected to happen in South Africa, but then science doesn't seem to be these guys strong point. The reason I bring this up is because PaV and nullasus argue that we should not rely so much on majority views (such as "Darwinism") but also take minority views into consideration. HIV not causing AIDS certainly qualifies as one of these. Minority views are, as these guys ocrrectly point out, sometimes correct and we ignore them at our own peril. This seems to be a popular argument for ID as well but, honestly, some views should not be given much attention - especially when they have VERY little going for them. We have to pursue avenues of research that are more likely than others to be fruitful. Some of these WILL be wrong and perhaps useless, but if we include outlandish ideas, what would the ratio for success/failure be then?<br /><br />If IDists disagree with this, then perhaps they should also support <a href="http://www.neue-medizin.com/lanka2.htm">Stefan Lanka</a> - his views are certainly minority ones. In a 2001 book he claims that there is no proof of any medically relevant viruses <span style="font-style: italic;">at all</span>. A gut reaction probably tells you that this guy is a true ignorant, but he is, in fact, a PhD-holding virologist and molecular biologist. Really, how big is the step from denying the "HIV causes AIDS" statement to the "medically relevant viruses don't exist at all" statement? How fruitful would research along these lines be?Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-22628152729401407862007-06-28T16:26:00.000-07:002007-06-28T16:29:08.116-07:00Off topic: The worth of my dead weight.Alledgedly, if I sell my dead body to science, I could get no less than:<br /><br /><a href="http://mingle2.com/cadaver-calculator" style="color: #fff; text-decoration: none; display: block; width: 395px; height: 184px; padding-top: 121px; background: url(http://mingle2.com/img/bb/body_worth/badge.jpg) no-repeat; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; text-align: center;"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">$3740.00</strong><span style="display: none;">The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth</span></a><p style="text-align: center;">Mingle<sup>2</sup> - <a href="http://mingle2.com">Online Dating</a></p><br /><br />Might as well keep on living...<br /><br />Link found through <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/">Pharyngula</a>.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-59074936206405062952007-06-27T14:54:00.000-07:002007-06-27T17:25:11.508-07:00Egnor and dualism. Again...Michael Egnor is <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/its_not_easy_being_a_materiali.html#more">again talking about the sufficiency of matter to cause conciousness</a>. This time around he doesn't actually come out looking completely silly. In his latest writings, he proposes a test how one could determine whether or not mere matter could be sufficient to cause mind. Egnor says that if a computer were to pass the Turing test, then he would accept the sufficiency of matter to cause mind. As Egnor writes:<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing"></a><blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing">Alan Turing</a>, in 1950, suggested a test for consciousness in a machine. In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test</a>, an investigator would interact with a person and a machine, but would be blinded as to which was which. If the investigator couldn’t tell which one was the person, and which was the machine, it is reasonable to conclude that the machine had a mind like the person. It would be reasonable to conclude that the machine was conscious.</blockquote>Unfortunately he seems to create a loop-hole for himself (if this should ever happen up to his standards) by invoking the Chinese Room thought experiment. Writes Egnor:<br /><blockquote>Imagine that P.Z. Myers went to China and got a job. His job is this: he sits in a room, and Chinese people pass questions, written on paper in Chinese, through a slot into the room. Myers, of course, doesn’t speak Chinese. Not a word. But he has a huge book, written entirely in Chinese, that contains every conceivable question, in Chinese, and a corresponding answer to each question, in Chinese. P.Z. just matches the characters in the submitted questions to the answers in the book, and passes the answers back through the slot. <p>In a very real sense, Myers would be just like a computer. He’s the processor, the Chinese book is the program, and questions and answers are the input and the output. And he’d pass the Turing test. A Chinese person outside of the room would conclude that Myers understood the questions, because he always gave appropriate answers. But Myers understands nothing of the questions or the answers. They’re in Chinese. Myers (the processor) merely had syntax, but he didn't have semantics. He didn't know the <em>meaning </em>of what he was doing. There’s no reason to think that syntax (a computer program) can give rise to semantics (meaning), and yet insight into meaning is a prerequisite for consciousness. The Chinese Room analogy is a serious problem for the view that A.I. is possible.</p></blockquote>Egnor finishes with his piece-de-resistance:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>But imagine that artificial intelligence could be created, and Searle is wrong. Imagine that teams of the best computer scientists, working day and night for decades, finally produced a computer that had an awareness of itself. A conscious computer, with a mind! So, finally, P.Z. Myers and I could agree on something. Myers would be right. If a computer had a mind, we could infer two things:</p> <p>1) Matter is sufficient, as well as necessary, for the mind. The mind is an emergent property of matter.<br />2) The emergence of mind from matter requires intelligent design.</p> <p>It’s not easy being a materialist. </p></blockquote>Seems like a catch-22 for materialists, doesn't it? Either mere matter is not sufficient to cause mind OR mere matter <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> sufficient to cause mind but while showing this, it is also proved that ID is true. It is a convincing argument - if you don't think it through.<br /><br />#1: Egnor's claim is entirely negative. As he says, "If we can’t create A.I., my viewpoint would seem more credible". His null hypothesis is, therefore, that matter is not enough to cause mind even though there is no evidence what-so-ever that there are any disembodied minds out there.<br /><br />#2: ID proponents are very fond of claiming that experiments in general, since they are intelligently designed, point to intelligent causes. Each and every A.I. experiment would be intelligently designed, no matter how trivial the input from any researchers was (yes, IDists like to point out the the chips in the computer was intelligently designed, after all). All Egnor is saying is that it is impossible, according to his standards, to use computers to to elucidate whether or not mind could arise in the absense of intelligence. So, if a machine was to become conscious, Egnor's seconds point above would be true by definition. Egnor is playing a silly "damned if you do, damned if you don't" game. Do the experiment and I win. Don't do the experiment and I win. Heads I win, tails you loose.<br /><br />So, all Egnor has done is to say that even if he is wrong about the sufficiency of matter being able to cause mind, he is still right about intelligent design. Reminds me of something my brother used to say: "I'm always right and even if I'm not right, at least I'm not wrong."Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-65695638944583217362007-06-26T16:22:00.000-07:002007-06-26T18:12:14.843-07:00Teleology and ID in physics<a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/teleology-and-id-in-physics-id-inspired-least-action-principles/">scordova at uncommondescent comments</a> that although teleology is rejected by evolutionary biologists, it is alive and well in physics. He supports this conclusion with a quote from a book about the history of physics that reads:<br /><blockquote> Fermat’s work led the German philosopher Leibniz to argue in a letter written in 1687 that in as much <strong>as the concept of purpose was basic to true science, the laws of physics should and could be expressed in terms of minimum principles</strong><span id="more-2444"></span><br />…….<br />The first such formulation was given by the French scientist Maupertuis who in 1744 presented a paper to the French Academy of Sciences showing that the behaviour of bodies in an impact could be predicted by assuming the product mvs, where m is mass, v is velocity, and s the distance, to be a minimum.</blockquote>He also quotes Euler as writing:<br /><blockquote>All the greatest mathematicians have long since recognized that the [least action] method…is not only extremely useful in analysis, but that it also contributes greatly to the solution of physical problems…the fabric of the universe is most perfect, and the work of a most wise Creator<br /></blockquote>So, minimum principles point to a creator since they point to perfect design. Need I remind scordova that on <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/">uncommondescent's comment policy page</a> appears this statement:<br /><blockquote>ID makes no claim that the source of complexity is a perfect God incapable of imperfection. Write that down.</blockquote>The policy is right. ID says nothing about the designer. The alledged designer is free to design however many imperfect things it wants to. How, then, can scordova imply that the least action principles of physics are ID-inspired? The answer is, he can't. He can claim that the least action principles were "the-perfect-God-of-the-Bible-inspired", but in order to do that, one has to make something that ID doesn't - make an assumption about the designer. Why would scordova make such a mistake? The answer may lie in another quote he supplies:<br /><strong></strong><blockquote><strong>Max Plank also felt the action formulation was a more fundamental view of natural phenomena than the mechanistic approach, primarily because he was partial to teleological explanations</strong> for religious reasons…..<br /></blockquote>Seems to me like scordova is implying that ID is a religious idea - or, perhaps, that the least action principles were religiously motivated rather than ID motivated. There is a difference, scordova just can't see it, though.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-3672582290261635712007-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:002007-06-24T19:55:30.777-07:00Eternal inflation solves all of biology's mysteries?In a peer-reviewed article published in the online journal Biology Direct, Eugene Koonin argues that the emergence of life is an extremely unlikely event - virtually impossible - but that life emerged anyway. It was able to do this, Koonin hypothesises, because it is possible that there are an infinite number of universes that all are different; And with an infinite number of universes follows the possbility of essentially infinitely unlikely events occuring with certainty. Events, Koonin argues, such as the emergence of life. I originally found this paper because it was mentioned by someone pro-ID at <a href="http://www.arn.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=30334364&an=0&page=0#Post30334364">arn</a> and it was also <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/eugene-koonin-really-big-numbers-solve-the-problem-of-the-origin-of-life-and-hence-theres-no-need-for-design/">mentioned at uncommondescent</a>. Here, I want to comment on some of the flaws this paper contains as well as pointing out the relevance of all of this to ID.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The hypothesis is scientifically useless</span><br /><br />The entire idea of the paper is philosophical rather than scientific. Koonin argues that his hypothesis is scientific since it is falsifiable. Two ways to falsify his claim, Koonin says, is to show how an RNA world could give rise to a translation system <span style="font-style: italic;">or</span> by the demonstration of life having emerged independently on different worlds. He seems to reach this conclusion since he claims that the above scenarions would be too unlikely to occur more than once. Writes Koonin:<br /><span class="bodytext" style="font-size:100%;"><blockquote>In other words, even in this toy model that assumes a deliberately inflated rate of RNA production, the probability that a coupled translation-replication emerges by chance in a single O-region is <i>P </i><>-1018</sup>. Obviously, this version of the breakthrough stage can be considered only in the context of a universe with an infinite (or, in the very least, extremely vast) number of <i>O</i>-regions.</blockquote></span>10^-1018 is admittedly virtually impossible and squaring this number would make the outcome even less likely. Unlikely it might be, but he himself is posulating the existence of an <span style="font-style: italic;">infinite</span> number of universes. How can you possibly talk probabilites when you are given an infinite number of attempts to reach a certain outcome? It doesn't matter if the probability is 10^-1018 or 10^-9999 - applying any sort of probability calculation to Koonin's hypothesis is useless.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The hypothesis and intelligent design detection using the explanatory filter</span><br /><br />To sum up the idea of William Dembski's explanatory filter (EF), it is, Dembski claims, a three step process for inferring design. The first two steps exclude the possiblity of natural processes alone (in the absense of intelligence) to explain an event. If no known law can account for an event and if the event is so unlikely as to be impossible, we are to proceed to step three. The third step, in turn, is a tautological question: could something intelligent have done it? The question is tautological since the intelligence in question could be anything - including an omnipotent god. The answer to question three is <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> yes.<br /><br />The relevance of all of this to Koonin's paper is two-fold:<br />(1) There is no known law that would make life appear natually and as Koonin argues, it is an unlikely event. IDers would therefore apply the EF and state that something intelligent designed life. Koonin's paper would, however, render EF completely impotent since under his hypothesis, anything, no matter how improbable, is bound to happen. If one were to use both the EF in addition to Koonin's hypothesis, one would never get past step two of the EF; One would never be able to infer design.<br />(2) Although Koonin claims that his hypothesis leaves no room for intelligent design (for the above reason), this claim does not hold water. After all, with an infinite number of possibilites, it is not exactly impossibly that we should find ourselves in a universe where life <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> designed by something intelligent. We just wouldn't be able to infer it using the EF.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Final words</span><br /><br />The paper is philosophical in nature and I can only really see it useful as the topic of discussion during a "mind-altering-substance-fest". Merely declaring the probabilites of extremely unlikely events as probable is as useful as claiming that something intelligent did it. These "techniques" are equivalent to merely throwing your hands in the air while exclaiming "we can't explain how this could have happened, so it must have been...".Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-30070243415584955702007-06-21T16:45:00.000-07:002007-06-21T17:45:59.097-07:00Downhill from here...GilDodgen at uncommondescent is making some <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/the-edge-of-evolution-the-obvious-presented-with-details/">complaints about mutations (June 20th, 2007)</a>. Writes he:<br /><blockquote>Mutations break things. However, on occasion, with huge probabilistic resources, a broken thing can promote survival in a specific environment (e.g., bacterial antibiotic resistance).<br /></blockquote>I would like to analyze this comment in the light of a paper entitled "<a href="http://www.biology.emory.edu/research/Levin/pubs/99costres.pdf">The biological cost of antibiotic resistance</a>" (downloadable for free). This paper sums up the experimental results of quite a few papers and gives quite a good picture of the fitness costs associated with antibiotic resistance. As the paper says:<br /><blockquote>In the majority of studies performed, resistance caused by target alterations has been found to engender some cost tofitness (Table 1),<br /></blockquote>This would seem to support GilDodgen's point that mutations break things, but<br /><blockquote>but mutants with no measurable costs have also been observed. One example of a ‘no cost’ resistance mutation is the 42nd codon AAA (Lys)®AGA (Arg) substitution of the rpsL gene, responsible for resistance to high concentrations of streptomycin in S. typhimurium and other enteric bacteria<br /></blockquote>flat out contradicts his argument. Mutations don't have to "break" things. Even if a mutation does "break" something to confer resistance, this will not necessarily mean that the antibiotic resistant bacterium will be less fit forever. Other mutations might restore fitness while maintaining resistance:<br /><blockquote>Although occasionally, in the absence of antibiotics, drugsensitive revertants have evolved in most cases, adaptation to the costs of chromosomal resistance in vitro and in vivo has been through compensatory mutations (Table 2). In the majority, but not all cases, the second site mutations compensating for the cost of resistance have been identified. These occur by additional (or alternative) mutations at the same locus as the resistance gene, intragenic suppression, or at other loci, extragenic suppression.<br /></blockquote>So, mutations don't always "break" things, even when they yield a selective advantage, and even if they do, they can "unbreak" them while still maintaining the advantage. GilDodgen is nothing short of wrong. Do these mutations "require huge probabilistc resources"? Well, typically 1 in 10^8 cells acquire the required mutations, so they are fairly unlikely. But why does that matter? With lots of cells mutating and there being long amounts of time for them to do so, this is not necessarily a problem (unless you are a young earth creationist).<br /><br />GilDodgen continues:<br /><blockquote>But broken things represent a downhill process, informationally, and cannot account for an uphill, information-creating process, not to mention the machinery required to process that information.<br /></blockquote>Well, by his own definition he is right I suppose. But then mutations don't necessarily mean broken, so his point is moot. GilDodgen finishes:<br /><blockquote>Understanding this is not difficult, unless one has a nearly pathological commitment to the notion that design in the universe and living systems cannot possibly exist.<br /></blockquote>It is diffcult understanding because it is WRONG. And who, exactly, claims that design cannot possibly exist? ID is rejected because it is unscientific and useless.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-10723003797304000192007-06-20T20:11:00.000-07:002007-06-20T20:23:43.078-07:00Is it a hoax?Dembski's sad attempt at showing that more and more non-religious people are turning to ID fell just a tad flat the other day. It was immediately noted by several anti-ID blogs, such as <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/06/an_international_coalition_of.php">Stranger Fruit</a>, that the web site Dembski linked to was less than underwhelming. Some commenters at Stranger Fruit openly suggested that perhaps Dembski had done a hoax to see just how much us anti-ID people are willing to believe about ID. I made a comment about that and thought that I might also reproduce it here. Although the comment was meant as a joke, it does present some valid points:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>There actually exists a method for discerning whether or not a piece of text is a pro-ID hoax. It's a three-step process called the Imploratory Filter:</p> <p>1. Does the text advocate a pro-ID stance?<br />2. Is it possible than someone could have written the text as a joke?<br />3. Does it look as if the writer is trying to hide the fact the the writing is a hoax?</p> <p>Only if the answers to the first two questions are yes do we proceed to question three. This is important since we know that people do write pro-ID hoaxes. Pro-ID hoaxes just don't materialize from writings about Goethe or Homer. The third stage of the Imploratory Filter presents us with a binary choice: attribute the thing we are trying to examine to deliberate deception if it appears joke-like; otherwise, attribute it to self-deception. In the first case, the writing we are trying to examine is not only pro-ID, but also appears joke-like. In the other, it is pro-ID, but appears deluded. It is the category of joke-like writings having a pro-ID stance that reliably signals a hoax. "Non-funny" writings advocating ID, on the other hand, are properly attributed to self-deception.</p> <p>The last thing we need to consider is the case of false positives and false negatives. This method can, unfortunately, yield false negatives. It is possible that some piece of writing might be labelled a non-hoax, when it in fact is a hoax. On the other hand, the method yields no false positives. I.e., when the filter claims that a writing really is a pro-ID hoax, it will will never turn out to be a non-hoax.</p> <p>The Imploratory Filter faithfully represents our ordinary practice of sorting through things we alternately attribute to self-deception or hoaxes. In particular, the Filter describes:<br />* how Michael Egnor is still allowed to post for the DI.<br />* how Casey Luskin can keep repeating that ID can make predictions.<br />* how Dembski can claim that the explanatory filter yields no false positives even though it measures design via specified complexity of which irreducible complexity is a subclass. Irreducible complexity, in turn, allows for false positives.</p> <p class="commentFooter"> Posted by: <a href="http://thedesigninterference.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Hawks</a> | <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/06/an_international_coalition_of.php#comment-469812">June 17, 2007 11:10 PM</a></p></blockquote><p class="commentFooter"><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/06/an_international_coalition_of.php#comment-469812"></a> </p><br />Commenter Hermagoras (has a blog at http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/) named it the best comment ever. It's official. It's got to be true then.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-66847394600673951842007-06-20T18:22:00.000-07:002007-06-20T18:26:18.909-07:00Dembski is a sore loserJune 20th, 2007. Site: uncommondescent. No link provided. This is my reply:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZnlC8MovnOU4Yj4ctGackMysj2EEzamfyf7Nuf-5NNAu9Fca79eeRDvLjOWiI2Ftl9sAEgmYOAjsjqSVympUAlrEHld3QcImjvNn-cOO_fnBAWRO1yAPD39aJGONXjzXtOCk53A/s1600-h/ID_Legacy.gif"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZnlC8MovnOU4Yj4ctGackMysj2EEzamfyf7Nuf-5NNAu9Fca79eeRDvLjOWiI2Ftl9sAEgmYOAjsjqSVympUAlrEHld3QcImjvNn-cOO_fnBAWRO1yAPD39aJGONXjzXtOCk53A/s1600-h/ID_Legacy.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZnlC8MovnOU4Yj4ctGackMysj2EEzamfyf7Nuf-5NNAu9Fca79eeRDvLjOWiI2Ftl9sAEgmYOAjsjqSVympUAlrEHld3QcImjvNn-cOO_fnBAWRO1yAPD39aJGONXjzXtOCk53A/s400/ID_Legacy.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5078322552301823522" border="0" /></a>Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-72091452162439873862007-06-19T18:12:00.000-07:002007-06-19T18:20:55.752-07:00But ID is not about religion, is it?We are constantly being told that ID has nothing what-so-ever to do with religion. How come then, that ID proponents such as Denyse O'Leary can say things like this at uncommondescent:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Mainstream media, covering the intelligent design (ID) controversy, warn you that most ID advocates are Christians or other theists. But how many have told you what I just did - that most of the people who strongly promote a no-design universe and no-design life forms are atheists?</p> <p>This has been true, by the way, for the better part of a century, ever since James Leuba started his surveys in 1914. So now, do you understand at least one reason why there is an intelligent design controversy?</p></blockquote><br />???<br /><br />The obvious answer is that ID has something to do with religion. I freely admit that ID as such is not religious but rather that the <span style="font-style: italic;">motivation for pushing for it</span> is.<br /><br /><br />For anyone intent on misinterpreting what I wrote above: I am not implying that since ID is not religious, it automatically means that it is scientific; it isn't.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-74596973326539653382007-06-19T16:35:00.000-07:002007-06-19T19:22:46.949-07:00JustificationsMichael Behe is an intelligent design proponent who is also known as accepting common descent - the idea that most, if not all, of life shares one single common ancestor. For example, in a Q&A regarding his new book "The Edge of Evolution" he wrote:<br /><br /><blockquote>So, if one looks at the data in the way that I do, then one can say simultaneously that: 1) CD (common descent) is very well supported;...<br /></blockquote>A question that arises from this is: how can Michael Behe justify holding this position? The easy answer would seem to be that he accepts the scientific evidence (fossil record, DNA sequences etc) for it. But this does not really answer the question as much as it evades it; the new question that arises is: how does Behe justify holding the position that scientific explanations are vaild? Or, more properly: Given that one accepts ID, how can one justify the acceptance of anything science has to say?<br /><br />The question might seem moronic, but remember that a central tenet of ID is that it says absolutely nothing about the designer; it <span style="font-style: italic;">does</span> say that certain features of the universe can't be explained by law and chance and should be properly attributed to intelligence (a la Dembski's Explanatory Filter) but this does NOT mean that things than can be explained by law and chance were not designed - these could be false negatives according to the Explanatory Filter. According to ID proponents, it seems that one is free to pursue investigation into these potential false negatives in any way one wishes. Attribute seemingly random mutations to intelligence if you want or attribute the apparent relatedness of extant organisms to either common descent or common design depending on your preferences. But in order for you to do this, you have to do something that ID does not - you have to make some assumptions about the designer. Behe seems to be assuming that the designer has been making lots of small modifications to creatures through the ages rather than, for example, creating everything from scratch a few thousand years ago. But how can he justify this assumption? The simple answer is that he can't. It's quite simply a personal preference and in this sense, when it comes to making inferences about the potential false negatives (should they be attributed to intelligence, scientific explanation or anything else for that matter?), ID is hard to distinguish from postmodernism (no one world view is more correct than the other). According to ID, just about anything goes.<br /><br />Because of this, when someone makes assumptions about the designer, as Behe has done, that someone has gone beyond simply advocating ID. Given that there is no justifiable reason to make one assumption rather than any other about the designer, Behe's view should not be called ID as much as "Beheism" just like those that interpret the biblical genesis literally should be called creationists.<br /><br />IDists sometimes like to distance themselves from creationsists - they should also distance themselves from Beheists. If they were consistent, that is.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-77721148601421740662007-06-17T15:02:00.000-07:002007-06-17T16:39:56.801-07:00Egnor......is doing it again. This time around he is trying to set up a <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/verizon_deniers_find_a_cellpho.html#more">thought experiment</a> to show why things like love and purpose can't be made from "material" stuff. I urge anyone to read the entire article, if nothing else, for the chuckle-value. Below is an excerpt which kind of sums up his argument:<br /><br /><blockquote>“What if the cell phone is necessary for all of the noises, but only sufficient for some? What if some of the noises in the phone are actual voices of living people, and are merely transmitted through the phone, but not caused by it?”<br /></blockquote><blockquote>1) The cell phone is necessary for all of the noises<br />2) The cell phone is sufficient to produce noises that only have properties — like frequency and amplitude — that are shared with the circuitry in the cell phone itself<br />3) The cell phone is insufficient to fully account for the noises (i.e., the voices) that have meaning, because meaning is not a property of matter. The only thing that can cause meaning is a person.<br /></blockquote><br />Funnily enough, voices <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> composed of changes in frequency and amplitude - properties that are shared with the circuitry of the cell phone itself. Also, substitute the cell phone for any of a number of other electrical appliances, such as an mp3 player, and it is quite obvious that things with material properties can certainly convey meaning, without merely transmitting it. So, Egnor's Verizon accepter would continue to be a Verzon denier. Supposedly, if it was not understood how the mp3 player made voices, Egnor's Verizon would conclude that the mp3 player was not sufficient to do it. Egnor wants the unknown to be ascribed to his own immaterial theories, by default - even in the total absense of evidence FOR his claim.<br /><br /><blockquote>The Verizon accepter shows that there is a method of determining whether the mind can be caused entirely by matter. If the mind has a property, such as meaning, that is not a property of matter, then matter, while perhaps necessary to the mind, is insufficient to cause it.<br /></blockquote>Notice that while Egnor says that he has supplied "a method of determining whether the mind can be caused entirely by matter", in this paragraph, he totally sidesteps it in favor of merely <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">defining</span> it impossible. So, not only does he want unknown causes to be ascribed to immaterial causes by default, he is outright claiming that there CAN'T be any evidence to the contary. Heavy stuff!<br /><br />I suppose that this is a good time to take some cheap shots at Egnor: where do you reckon the voices in Egnor's head come from?Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-4251879674066169222007-06-14T16:57:00.000-07:002007-06-14T19:59:08.084-07:00Egnor. Hurrah!!!Michael Egnor is at it again. I've actually come to look forward to his writing for the Discovery Institute. They are all so wonderfully bizarre. And lacking in logic. <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/please_help_pz_meyers_find_alt.html#more">In his latest attempt</a>, again talking about altruism and the brain, he <a href="http://thedesigninterference.blogspot.com/2007/06/egnor-is-at-it-again.html">yet again</a> manages to support dualism while at the same time claiming that it is impossible. He also does one better. And this one is nothing short of insane. The article argues against P.Z. Myers' claim that altruism actually resides in the brain. Says Egnor:<br /><br /><blockquote>If altruism is located in the brain, then some changes in location of the brain must, to use a mathematical term, 'map' to changes in altruism. That is, if you move your brain, you move your altruism in some discernable way. And 'moving' altruism means changing its properties. It won't do to say that moving altruism changes its property of 'location,' because 'location' of altruism is the issue. That begs the question.<br /><br /></blockquote>No, really. He really wrote this. This is Egnor's argument. Moving something means changing it's properties. And not the properties of location. You move your altruism in some discernable way. Not from A to B.<br /><br />Egnor continues:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>But how does moving your brain change your altruism? ...If you walk around the room does your altruism change in a reproducible way? If you stand up, is your altruism different that when you're sitting?</p> <p>For altruism to be located in the brain, changes in altruism must map, in some reproducible way, to changes in brain location. ... Altruism is completely independent of location, so it can't be located in the brain, or anywhere. It can't be 'located' at all.</p></blockquote><p></p><br />:-o :-o :-o<br /><br />Yes, his argument is that if altruism was located in the brain, then your altruism should change as your brain moves. :-o :-o :-o<br /><br />Sorry, I can't really say anything more about this. It's pure insanity.<br /><br />Added: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/michael_egnor_wants_to_know_wh.php">P.Z Myers has also taken apart Egnor's claims at Pharyngula</a>.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-64560482427099750992007-06-12T19:16:00.000-07:002007-06-26T20:06:51.070-07:00DDT-malariaBarryA at uncommondescent has written a short post regarding the use of DDT to kill malaria (June 12th, 2007). He makes some valid points. For example, DDT use, which is very effective at killing the mosquitos that transmit the malaria-causing organism, has been banned resulting in untold suffering due to acquisition of this dreadful disease. However, he then goes as says something quite extraordinary:<br /><br /><blockquote>I also learned that everything I thought I knew about DDT was flat wrong. Not only is DDT safe, scientists have known this for decades.<br /></blockquote>Eeeerrrmm. DDT is safe? Not quite. DDT belongs to a class of compounds known as xenoestrogens - also commonly referred to as gender benders. Although there has been no experimental work to show that this should affect humans (for obvious reasons), epidemiological studies and experimental work on other organisms do point to the fact that DDT is not safe (I am aware that there has been a lot of controversy in the scientific community over the extent to which xenoestrogens actually have been a problem for humans). The effect on wild-life such as birds is well documented. An important point to note here is that DDT belong to a class of compunds that act on similar biological pathways and have similar effects. So even though it might be safe for a human to be exposed to DDT up to a concentration of X, this might not be true when exposure to other xenoestrogens are added to the equation.<br /><br />The questions that arise knowing this is whether you would rather be a bit gender bent or be suffering from malaria? Would you rather that some birds of prey failed to raise it's chicks compared to you suffering from malaria? Personally, I'd rather not suffer from malaria.<br /><br />BarryA has brought up a valid point, but I wonder why he filed his post under "intelligent design". Perhaps he didn't mean to, but a commenter couldn't resist turning this into a Darwinian eugenics(?) issue.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Edited to add:seems like the main reason DDT use dropped was not because of any environmental concerns, but rather that the mosquitos were developing resistance to the pesticide. See, for example, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm">The DDT ban myth</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://kenethmiles.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_kenethmiles_archive.html#107570569615970184">Putting myths to bed</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span>Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-1963984500053438672007-06-09T13:57:00.000-07:002007-06-09T20:07:06.889-07:00Explore evolutionA new anti-evolution book "Explore Evolution" has been released. Co-authored by ID proponenets Stephen Meyer, Scott Minnich and Paul Nelson, what is new about this book from an ID perspective is that it doesn't talk about intelligent design. That's right. The thinking is obviously that if there is no mention of god or ID, then schools should be free to use the book in science classes. They might even succeed. What I do want to do here, is examine this book in the light of William Dembski's concept of the "Explanatory Filter" (EF). Dembski claims that EF is a sure proof method for detecting intelligent design. Three criteria must be met in order for anyone using the EF before they can proclaim that something was intelligently designed:<br /><br />1. Can scientific law explain the event?<br />2. Can chance explain the event?<br />3. Can intelligent intervention explain the event?<br /><br />The object of the two first points is to exclude false positives. For example, we shouldn't explain the fact that a stone dropped from a height will fall down by invoking something intelligent. Law (gravity) will suffice to explain this. Neither should we invoke intelligence when something improbable occurs - unless it is too improbable (as in the writings in this post; the probability that the letters contained herein should occur in the order they do is virtually impossible). If law and chance can't explain an event, Dembski wants us to ask a third question: could something intelligent have done it? Given that ID doesn't say anything about the intelligent designer and that the potential designer could be an omnipotent god, the answer is ALWAYS yes - point 3 is, in essence, a truism. Previous books by ID proponents have always gone into some detail, not just about how evolution can't but, how intelligence can do this and that. As I've already stated, "Explore Evolution" has simply dropped the "but intelligence can do it" label - i.e. point 3 of the EF.<br /><br />So what, you may ask. Well, previous attempts at getting creationism into science class rooms have failed because creationism was deemed to be religion. The creationists then tried to have stickers inserted into biology text books claiming that evolution was not a fact, but merely a theory with several gaps. The Explore Evolution book seems to be one of those stickers, albeit a rather big one. Also, I'm about to make a prediction: ID creationists will, if Explore Evolution becomes accepted course material, insert stickers proclaiming point 3 of EF - namely that intelligence can explain everything they perceive that evolution can't. That sticker will effectively sum all of ID theory: ID can explain anything and everything - hardly the measure of a scientific theory.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-85660652607358739992007-06-09T12:55:00.000-07:002007-06-09T13:15:24.226-07:00Edge of EvolutionMichael Behe's new book "Edge of Evolution" is out and a review in the journal Science has been written by Sean Carrol. DaveScot at uncommondescent has started a thread to fisk this review (making it a rebuttal of a rebuttal, in essence).<br /><br />From the review:<br /><i></i><blockquote><p>Here’s one glaring mistake in the author’s review (my emphasis): </p> <p><i>In Darwin’s Black Box, he posited that genes for modern complex biochemical systems, such as blood clotting, might have been “designed billions of years ago and have been passed down to the present but not ‘turned on’”. <b>This is known to be genetically impossible because genes that aren’t used will degenerate, but there it was in print.</b></i> </p></blockquote>DaveScot fisks:<br /><blockquote>It’s easily possible. Error checking to insure data integrity to any arbitrary reliability standard is de rigueur in computer memory systems. In my experience most things that human designers have come up with in electronic information processing has antecedents in biological information systems. I therefore anticipate things we’ve invented on our own to have parallels in organic systems and mechanisms for insuring any required level of data integrity is no exception.<br /></blockquote><br />Neither DaveScot nor Carrol is really right here. While it is not easily possible, it is neither impossible. Carrol should really have said that there is no evidence that unused genetic information will be retained over long time spans . The interesting bit here is that Carrol has made made the sort of argument that IDers commonly (and usually excusively) make - a negative one. IDers tend to claim that evolution can't do this and that. Even though DaveScot thinks there is evidence lacking that natural processes can account for the diversity of life we see today, he has no problem appealing to processes that there is no evidence for. Interesting... His appeal to error checking the way humans do it is interesting as well, given that in living organisms, "the error checking mechanisms" could change as well. And if they do, then unused genetic information would presumably change with it.<br /><br />Like DaveScot, I have an anticipation as well: whenever there is any sort of parallell between living beings and humanly designed things, IDers will claim that this is evidence for ID.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35886573.post-62998369710825986422007-06-04T16:38:00.000-07:002007-06-04T17:53:52.304-07:00Our priviledged planetGuillermo Gonzales, an as it seems descent researcher, who was recently denied tenure at a major university has written a book "The Priviledged Planet". <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/darwinist_misrepresents_guille.html#more">In it, he argues, as Casey Luskin says</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>But in reality, Dr. Gonzalez’s entire thesis argues for design based upon a convergence of the requirements for both habitability and scientific discovery.<br /></blockquote>The idea is that since Earth is habitable for advanced creatures such as ourselves compounded with the fact that Earth is great for making scientific discoveries*, Earth was actually created to have these characteristics. Gonzales argues (perhaps rightly so ) that there probably exists only relatively few planets that are habitable and even fewer of those would be suitable for advanced beings such as ourselves. Add to that the fact that our rare planet is most excellent for making really cool scientific discoveries and you should really draw the conclusion that the probability of these conditions to be met is incredibly small. So small, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible. The conclusion we should draw from this is that our planet was created the way it was - so that we can discover things. I might give a bit of a critique to this in a later post, but what I really want to do here is to critisize something else Gonzales claims in his book: that if complex life is found elsewhere in the universe, then the world on which it is found will also be great for scientific discoveries. Gonzales is, in other words, making a prediction.<br /><br />As I've argued numerous times before, ID (and by extension any "theory" that postulates a designer without saying anything about the designer) <a href="http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/%7Ehawks/NoIDTcanNotPredict.htm">cannot make predictions</a>. <a href="http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_isidtestable.htm">Even William Dembski agrees with this</a> as, "Designers are inventors. We cannot predict what an inventor would do short of becoming that inventor.". The only way Gonzales would be justified in making that predictions (other than identifying his designer) would be if he assumed that his designer would make habitable worlds great for discoveries. But then his conclusion would be in his assumption, and circular reasoning is not how you want to justify anything. His prediction is, then, nothing but shoddy scholarship.<br /><br />There are, of course, lots of books being printed and lots of these contain worse stuff than "The Priviledged Planet". The reason that Gonsalez's book is being singled out is because he is a <span style="font-style: italic;">bona fide</span> astronomer. In this sense, the book carries a lot of authority - totally undeserved. I agree with one thing Gonzales says: our planet is a priviledged one. Too bad that an in other ways obviously clever man has come to some rather (from a scientific perspective) blatantly illogical conclusions.<br /><br /><br /><br />* One of the reason Gonzales thinks that this is the case is because our planet sometimes experiences perfect solar eclipses (which, among other things, allowed us to test one of Einstein's more famous theories). As Gonzales say, there is no physical reason why the moon should be 400 times smaller than the Sun AND 400 times closer to us than the same Sun.Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15142674200236893000noreply@blogger.com0